Oil & Blood

Oil & Blood

The
way to take over the world

In its drive toward war against
Iraq, the Bush administration insisted throughout the fall of 2002 that its
purpose was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and establish democracy.
No doubt, Saddam Hussein's regime was dictatorial and dangerous, and Iraq's
civilian population had suffered grievously. But there was no clear evidence
that Iraq posed the immediate and growing threat that the administration
depicted.

So, why the renewed focus of U.S. policy on Iraq? Was it a
desire to fortify U.S. political domination of the oil-rich Middle East? Not at
all, said the White House. "The only interest the United States has in the
region is furthering the cause of peace and stability, not [Iraq's] ability to
generate oil," contended the president's spokesman, Ari Fleischer. Given U.S.
addiction to oil and Washington's long history of intervention in the region, this is a disingenuous, if not
downright deceptive, statement.

The Middle East-and specifically the Persian Gulf
region-accounts for about 30 percent of global oil production. But it has about
65 percent of the planet's known reserves, and is therefore the only region
able to satisfy any substantial rise in world oil demand-an increase that the
administration's energy policy documents say is inevitable. Saudi Arabia, with
262 billion barrels, has a quarter of the world's total reserves and is the
single largest producer. But Iraq, despite its pariah status for the past 12
years, remains a key prize. At 112 billion barrels, its known reserves are
second only to Saudi Arabia's. And, given that substantial portions of Iraqi
territory have never been fully explored, there is a good chance that actual
reserves are far larger.

For half a century, the United States has made steadily
increasing investments in keeping the Gulf region in its geopolitical orbit.
The investments have included the overthrow of "hostile" governments and
support of client regimes, massive arms transfers to allies, acquisition of
military bases, and direct and indirect forms of intervention-many of these
activities involving shifting alliances and repeated large-scale violence. In
Washington's calculus, securing oil supplies has consistently trumped the
pursuit of human rights and democracy. This is still the case today, as the
Bush administration prepares for a more openly imperial role in the region.

Saudi Arabia has had a close relationship with the United
States since the 1940s. But it has long been vulnerable to pressures from the
far more populous Iraq and Iran. Iran was brought firmly into the Western orbit
by a 1953 CIA-engineered coup against the Mossadegh government, which had
nationalized Iran's oil. The coup re-installed the Shah on the Persian throne.
Armed with modern weaponry by the United States and its allies, the Shah became
the West's regional policeman once the military forces of Britain-the former
colonial power-were withdrawn from the Gulf area in 1971.

Iraq, on the other hand, was a pro-Western country until 1958, when its British-installed monarchy
was overthrown. Fearing that Iraq might turn communist under the new military
regime, the United States dabbled in a temporary alliance of convenience with
the Ba'ath (Renaissance) Party in its efforts to grab power. CIA agents
provided critical logistical information to the coup plotters and supplied
lists with the names of hundreds of suspected Communists to be eliminated.

Even so, in 1972 the Ba'ath regime signed a treaty of
friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union. Baghdad turned to Moscow both
for weapons and for help in deterring any U.S. reprisals against Iraq for
nationalizing the Iraq Petroleum Company, which had been owned by Royal
Dutch-Shell, BP, Exxon, Mobil, and the French firm CFP. Iraq was the first Gulf
country to successfully nationalize its oil industry.

Saddam Hussein, a strongman of the Ba'ath regime who
formally took over as President in 1979, was instrumental in orchestrating the
pro-Moscow policy. But as it became apparent that the Soviet Union could not
deliver the technologies and goods (both civilian and military) needed to
modernize Iraq he shifted to a more pro-Western policy. Western governments and
companies were eager to soak up the rising volume of petrodollars, and to lure
Iraq out of the Soviet orbit. During the 1980s, this eagerness extended to
supplying Baghdad with the ingredients needed to make biological, chemical, and
nuclear weapons.

The year 1979 turned out to be a watershed, as the Shah of
Iran was swept aside by an Islamic revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini
to power. One of Washington's main geopolitical pillars had crumbled, and the
new regime in Teheran was seen as a mortal threat by the conservative Persian
Gulf states. The Carter administration responded by pumping rising quantities
of weapons into Saudi Arabia, and began a quest for new military bases in the
region (Bahrain eventually became the permanent home base for the U.S. Fifth
Fleet). But there was no escaping the fact that neither Saudi Arabia nor any of
the smaller Gulf states was strong enough to replace Iran as a proxy.

Instead, Iraq became a surrogate of sorts. Iran and Iraq had
long been at loggerheads. Seeing a rival in revolutionary disarray, and sensing
an opportunity for an easy victory that would propel him to leadership of the
Arab world, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in September 1980. Eager to see
Teheran's revolutionary regime reined in, the United States turned a blind eye
to the aggression, opposing UN Security Council action on the matter.

But instead of speeding the Iranian regime toward collapse,
the attack consolidated Khomeini's power. And marshalling revolutionary fervor,
Iran was soon turning the tide of battle. With the specter of an Iraqi defeat
looming, the United States went much farther in its support of Saddam:

To facilitate closer cooperation,
the Reagan administration removed Iraq from a list of nations that it regarded
as supporters of terrorism. Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense, met with
Saddam in Baghdad in December 1983. His visit paved the way to the restoration
of formal diplomatic relations the following year, after a 17-year hiatus.

The United States made available
several billion dollars' worth of commodity credits to Iraq to buy U.S. food,
alleviating severe financial pressures that had threatened Baghdad with
bankruptcy. The food purchases were a critical element in the regime's attempts
to shield the population as much as possible from the war's repercussions-and
hence limiting the likelihood of any challenges to its rule. The U.S.
government also provided loan guarantees for an oil export pipeline through
Jordan (replacing other export routes that had been blocked because of the
war).

Though not selling weapons
directly to Iraq, Reagan administration officials allowed private U.S. arms
dealers to sell Soviet-made weapons purchased in Eastern Europe to Iraq. U.S.
leaders permitted Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan to transfer U.S.-made
weapons to Baghdad. And they abandoned earlier opposition to the delivery of
French fighter jets and Exocet missiles (which were subsequently used against
tankers transporting Iranian oil).

As the war went on, the United
States took an increasingly active military role. It tilted toward Iraq in the
"war on tankers" by protecting oil tankers in the southern Gulf against Iranian
attacks, but did not provide security from Iraqi attacks for ships docking at
Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal. Later, the United States even launched
attacks on Iran's navy and Iranian offshore oil rigs.

Washington's immediate objective was to prevent an Iranian
victory. In a larger sense, though, U.S. policymakers were intent on keeping
both Iraq and Iran bogged down in war, no matter how horrendous the human cost
on both sides-hundreds of thousands were killed. (The Reagan administration
secretly allowed Israel to ship several billion dollars' worth of U.S. arms and
spare parts to Iran.) Preoccupied with fighting one another, Baghdad and
Teheran would be unable to challenge U.S. domination of the Gulf region.
Reflecting administration sentiments, Henry Kissinger said in 1984 that "the
ultimate American interest in the war [is] that both should lose."

Oil and geopolitical interests translated into U.S. support
for Saddam Hussein when he was at his most dangerous and murderous-not only
committing an act of international aggression by invading Iran, but also by
using chemical weapons against both Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds. U.S.
assistance to Baghdad was provided although top officials in Washington knew at
the time that Iraq was using poison gas.

Undoubtedly, U.S. support emboldened Saddam Hussein to
invade Kuwait in 1990. But the United States would never consent to a single,
potentially hostile, power gaining sway over the Gulf region's massive oil
resources. When its regional strongman crossed that line, U.S. policy shifted
to direct military intervention.

Following the Gulf War, the United States supplied Saudi
Arabia and other allies among the Gulf states with massive amounts of highly
sophisticated armaments. Washington and other suppliers delivered more than
$100 billion worth of arms from 1990 to 2001. In the late 1980s, Saudi Arabia
had imported 17 percent, by dollar value, of worldwide weapons sales to developing
countries. In the 1990s, the Saudi share rose to 38 percent.

But rather than becoming independent military powers, Riyadh
and the other Gulf states are at best beefed-up staging grounds for the U.S.
military: Washington has for many years been "pre-positioning" military
equipment and supplies and expanding logistics capabilities to facilitate any
future intervention. And although political sensitivities rule out a visible,
large-scale U.S. troop presence, more than 5,000 U.S. troops have been
continuously deployed in Saudi Arabia, and more than 20,000 in the Gulf region
as a whole.

Despite insinuations by the Bush administration, there is no
evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime is in any way linked to the events of
September 11, 2001. However, the terrorist attacks facilitated a far more
belligerent, unilateralist mood in Washington and set the stage for the Bush
administration doctrine of pre-emptive war.

Installing a U.S. client regime in Baghdad would give
American and British companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, Shell, and BP) a
good shot at direct access to Iraqi oil for the first time in 30 years-a
windfall worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And if a new regime rolls out
the red carpet for the oil multinationals to return, it is possible that a
broader wave of de-nationalization could sweep through the world's oil
industry, reversing the historic changes of the early 1970s.

Rival oil interests were a crucial behind-the-scenes factor
as the permanent members of the UN Security Council jockeyed over the wording
of a new resolution intended to set the parameters for any action against Iraq.
The French oil company TotalFinaElf has cultivated a special relationship with
Iraq since the early 1970s. And along with Lukoil of Russia and China's National
Petroleum Corp., it has for years positioned itself to develop additional oil
fields once UN sanctions are lifted. But there have been thinly veiled threats
that these firms will be excluded from any future oil concessions unless Paris,
Moscow, and Beijing support the Bush policy of regime change. Intent on
constraining U.S. belligerence, France, Russia, and China nonetheless are eager
to keep their options open in the event that a pro-U.S. regime is installed in
Baghdad-and accordingly voted in favor of the U.S.-drafted resolution in
November.

But the stakes in all this maneuvering involve much more
than just the future of Iraq. The Bush energy policy is predicated on growing
consumption of oil, preferably cheap oil. Given rising depletion of U.S. oil
fields, most of that oil will have to come from abroad, and indeed primarily
from the Gulf region. Controlling Iraqi oil would allow the United States to
reduce Saudi influence over oil policy and give Washington enormous leverage
over the world oil market.

Both in the Middle East and in other regions, securing
access to oil goes hand in hand with a fast-expanding U.S. military presence.
From Pakistan to Central Asia to the Caucasus, and from the eastern
Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa, a dense network of U.S. military
facilities has emerged-with many bases established in the name of the "war on
terror."

Only in the most direct sense is the Bush administration's
Iraq policy directed against Saddam Hussein. In a broader sense, it aims to
reinforce the world economy's reliance on oil-undermining efforts to develop
renewable energy sources, boost energy efficiency, and control greenhouse gas
emissions. The same administration that decided to slash annual spending for
energy efficiency and renewables R&D has no problem with preparing for a
war that could cost as much as $200 billion.

By rejecting U.S. participation in
the Kyoto Protocol early in his tenure, George W. Bush sought to throw a wrench
into the international machinery set up to address the threat of climate
change. By securing the massive flow of cheap oil, he may hope to kill Kyoto.
In a perverse sense, a war on Iraq reinforces the assault against the Earth's
climate.